Small Steps
by ILoveRomances
Summary: Set after Fool Me Once. Bonnie is on a mission to see Damon pay and reform himself.


A/N: Please forgive any writing incompetencies as save for 3 small paragraphs as an addendum to a story I started long ago I have not even attempted to write a story or so much as a word drabble in 10 years. This is obviously my first Bamon fic and I can assure you that once my rustiness has worn off the writing will get much better. I know the first part of this story is severely lacking in dialogue, but it's there I promise. Please check out my stories from 10 years ago as an indication of my abilities. They are Spike/Willow fics from BTVS and I feel that Bamon is a natural successor to that pairing as they have a similar dynamic. Please see my profile for more details. If you find the dialogue at all lacking, please find fault with the true culprits, the writers of Vampire Diaries as they have given me far too few Bamon scenes for inspiration. A special thanks to Mel and all my other Bamon friends for encouraging me to write this. Also, a special thanks to Shelly for giving me the idea of using Damon's ABC speak against him.

It had been 3 long months since she'd last set foot in Mystic Falls. She had taken Grams' death hard and had begged her father to let her get away for awhile. He of course agreed as he had very little time for her anyway. She told him she wanted to visit her family in North Carolina. While she did long for familial companionship, it wasn't from them, it was from Grams. However, she knew that she would never again have that. In her blind loyalty to Elena and her boyfriend, she had sacrificed her grandmother's life. Of course, she never would have made that decision had she known. She never would have even had to make any decision if it weren't for one person – Damon Salvatore. Just thinking the name caused bile to rise to the back of her throat. Her hatred for him knew no bounds. All of her life, she had been taught to look for the good in people and she had done so faithfully. However, in meeting him she felt she had come across the face of evil itself no matter how deceptively beautiful it might be.

She had another reason for seeking the comfort of her relatives. With the passing of Grams she was left without her only guide to her true path in life, her legacy, witchcraft. No, once she lost her grandmother to a powerful spell she knew there was no longer any turning back. She had to do everything she could to become the witch Grams believed she could be. She had to be strong enough to do every spell in Emily's Grimoire and any other. That was her path. Once she had achieved this, she reasoned that she would be able to protect her hometown of Mystic Falls from the evil in their midst, Damon Salvatore.

Oh, she held no small amount of loathing for Anna too but at least she understood her motivation better. She had to save her mother, that's more than Bonnie had been able to do for her grandmother. Anna's mother loved her and she loved her back so of course she would try to rescue her. However, Damon's "love" was selfish. He loved someone who never loved him and pitted him against his own brother. He spent 145 torturing, killing, and ruining people's lives with no amount of guilt. What could he possibly know about how to love? He claimed to have done it to save Katherine, but that was a lie. Turning Vicky, killing Zach and Lexi, abusing Caroline, and attacking Bonnie herself did nothing to save Katherine. Damon did it because he was Damon.

Now Bonnie had spent practically every waking moment of the last 3 months digesting everything she could about witchcraft. Her aunt had taught her so much. According to her, her grandmother had been telling her things in baby steps to make it more comfortable for Bonnie. However, now she knew nothing would ever be comfortable again. Magic wasn't pretty or beautiful, it was strong and powerful. It wasn't delicate and she couldn't afford to take small steps with it. She had to grab on with everything in her and bend it to her will. Her aunt had feared that the magic would be too much for such a young witch but Bonnie felt her Grams' spirit and the desire to protect her loved ones and her town from Damon to be a motivating factor.

She absorbed new spells with relative ease after awhile. As soon as she mastered one, she would move on the next. She was pleasantly surprised to find that her aunt had quite a large garden of herbs useful in the practice of magic. The greatest surprise was the discovery of an acre of vervain. She immediately recognized it for what it was. Her grandmother and Stefan had told her about it's effects against vampires. She had thought the plant had simply died out. Bonnie was happy that she was wrong. She knew that she could better protect the town this way. However, the vervain would only go so far. If people wore it they could be protected against compulsion, but not from becoming food. She couldn't very well put it in the drinking supply as it would simply be filtered out. She gathered a large group of vervain plants and hoped that she could come up with a plan.

As much as she hated Damon and wanted him dead for the good of everyone she knew she couldn't simply kill him. No matter what had transpired between he and Stefan they were and always would be brothers. As much as Damon desired to suffer for what he had done, Stefan didn't deserve to go through the agony of losing a loved one, even if that loved one was Damon. She knew all too keenly what the absence of a family member could do to you, how it could change you. Every time she looked in the mirror, she saw someone not her. Sure she looked the same on the outside but she felt something in her soul had changed and it radiated out through her eyes. Some days she felt as though she were staring back at Emily.

While she had been possessed, she felt this surge of power and strength so unlike herself. She had secretly envied that about Emily. Now as she was becoming more sure of herself and more powerful she realized the cost of such a transformation. Her innocence was gone. Sure she was still a virgin, having never found a guy that loved her or that she loved deeply enough to give a part of herself away too. No, the innocent that was gone was the belief that good things happened if you were good, that good always triumphed over evil. She thought back to telling Elena "No, he doesn't deserve to get what he wants". However, of course Damon did get what he wanted. Ultimately, he may have lost the war of getting back Katherine, but he did win the battle and despite Bonnie's protests the tomb was opened and her Grams paid the price. Evil triumphed over good.

She stepped out of her Prius to gaze upon her Grams' house. There was a sold sign up now. Just like that. All her life, this was home and her real home felt more like her second home. This was where Bonnie had come to be loved, and bake chocolate chip cookies, and cry over bullies and stupid teenage boys who didn't ask her out. Why? Why did this have to happen to Grams? She brushed the tears away that silently fell. She wasn't going to do this anywhere. She was stronger than that know. She was a powerful witch and nothing was going to make her crumble again, not even the power of death. Oh, she knew she would always love and miss Grams but she also knew the way to honor her memory was to be tough-as-nails and never hold anything back, just like her grandmother. Bonnie steeled her resolve and got back in her car and drove off.

Her father was working at the office she knew so she made her next stop. The one it took the entire 3 months to build up the strength for. She drove to the Salvatore mansion. It was daytime and she knew Elena and Stefan would be at school since he had started attending classes again. No, she had not come to see her friends today. She had come to see her worst enemy. She had long since shed the fear she carried inside her prior to her Grams' death. With her gone, there was nothing left to fear. She didn't care much one way or the other if she lost her own life because he had already taken the one that truly mattered to her. Now she came for payback.

She stepped out of the car with purpose. She wore jeans and a form-fitting deep green t-shirt. Her hair was hanging loosely around her face. Her makeup was much more grown-up lately and her eyes were creating the devastating effect of making her look like a modern day siren. Those luminous eyes shone with intelligence and cunning. Her hands stayed at her side clutching her purse. She knew he was inside. Her instincts had grown sharper with the use of magic. She had particularly developed her psychic abilities to a much more potent use. No longer limited to picking out utensils and knowing who was calling on the phone, now she knew exactly where Damon was in the house, right behind the front door, and what he was thinking, and it wasn't good.

_Just the little witch I've been dying to see. Maybe now I can finally find out where Katherine is. She deserves to pay for what she put me through._

She allowed him to finish the thought before she threw the front door open with the power of her mind. He stared back in shock. Before he could blink, she had pinned him up against the wall. He couldn't move, much to his chagrin.

"Now look you little witch, you don't want to do that" Damon threatened while still struggling against the invisible restraints.

"A. Or what? B. I'm not your little witch and C. Oh, I so want to do this". She smirked. It looked suspiciously like one of his patented smirks too. Was the little witch mocking him now?

"Why? What'd I do" Damon joked.

"What'd you do? My Grams is dead because of you" she screeched.

"Hey! I didn't kill her." Damon barked.

"No, you didn't Damon. But she is dead – because of you and your schemes. You need to be stopped and I'm going to make that happen. You are not going to keep on hurting people. Not in my town." Bonnie said authoritatively.

"It's my town too. I grew up here just like you did. I have a right to live here". Damon asserted.

"Oh, you misunderstand me Damon. You get to keep living here. You just don't get to keep doing what you've been doing. You deserve to die – permanently, but that would hurt Stefan and enough people have been hurt by you already. You're going to become a kinder, gentler vampire even if it kills you again." Bonnie said asserted.

"Oh yeah, little witch, what are you going to do? Sic Stefan on me?" Damon said sarcastically.

Bonnie laughed raucously. "No. I can take care of you myself."

"Is that a proposition". Damon smirked lecherously as he raised his eyebrows.

Bonnie huffed. "As if! You honestly believe good looks and charm can make up for the lack of a soul, don't you."

"Have you been watching reruns of Buffy? Real vampires have souls." Damon informed.

"I can't tell. If you ever had one then you must have sold it to the devil. How you turned out to be Stefan's brother is beyond me." Bonnie stated.

"Well what do you know? That's something we can agree on. I could never be like him. All broody and righteous." Damon whined.

"If he's righteous it's because he has reason to be. Whereas you have every reason in the world to feel like the scum of the earth and yet you feel no remorse. You're just a mindless killer! Bonnie shouted.

"I'm a vampire. I do what I have to do to survive." Damon defended.

"Turning Vicky? Killing Zach and Lexi? Abusing Caroline? Attacking me? You didn't have to do any of those things to survive. Stefan certainly doesn't. You caused all of that misery because you have a lump of coal where a soul should be. You're worthless." Bonnie condemningly told him.

"Yeah yeah yeah blah blah blah. So what are you going to do about it?." Damon bantered back.

"Well, I don't expect anyone to change overnight, not where it counts anyway. Don't worry. We'll take small steps." Bonnie said cryptically.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm supposed to start buying Girl Scout cookies at the local Starbucks?" Damon laughed.

"Actually I was thinking more along the lines of this" Bonnie said enthusiastically. She mumbled an incantation in a language he didn't understand.

"What? Little witch what are you…" Damon shrieked in mind-numbing pain and closed his eyes.

"Relax. This'll only hurt for a minute." Bonnie teased.

Damon's screams stopped just as suddenly as they started. When next he opened his eyes, he saw the most curious sight.


End file.
